


Art Is Hard

by FallOutFromGrace



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Artist!Gerard Way, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Frontman!Frank Iero, M/M, Melancholy, do people even do ‘!’ Anymore or am I just old
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23232679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallOutFromGrace/pseuds/FallOutFromGrace
Summary: He just wanted to do something about all that white on his canvas, but art was more trouble than it was worth and he was spiraling further into himself. Finding solace in a passionate singer, Gerard and Frank find the comfort and company they needed to get through another heavy night.
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Art Is Hard

**Author's Note:**

> My way of coping with a shitty time and the first writer's block I've had in months with my other fics. Chapters are coming, I promise! In the meantime, take this weird lil oneshot. Cheers!

Gerard struggled a little too often these days. A heavy sensation in his chest made its home there, weighing his footfalls down like an anchor sinking in the depths of the ocean. Fixing his heavy overcoat, he made the effort to drag himself down the empty, wet, darkened streets despite the air feeling thick around him.

Spending his days in front of empty sketchbooks, unused pencils and erasers, and letting art tablets gather dust was getting old real fast. It was rough. Really, really rough, when not even bottles and bottles of booze could spark up his inspiration enough to do something about all that white on his canvas, standing tall and daunting in the corner of his living room like a sentry. Art had been making him feel small, like he was being put under a microscope and nothing he created was good enough. He needed to escape it. It made him feel guilty, for a little while. Art was his everything. What was he if he could not make something with his hands? So, putting on his jacket and stuffing his keys and phone in his pocket, he abandoned whatever idea he had of who he could be in that apartment, and went in search for a break. A pause. Something, anything.

The first time he saw him, he was just looking for a way out of that. Turning corners he never would have otherwise, he had found a small hole in the wall that promised something to drink, something to eat, and something to listen to while he drowned in whatever was making him feel so heavy. His music greeted him like a sharp knife in his eardrums. To say the band was bad was an understatement. Gerard had somehow missed out on music after he’d turned his focus to painting and drawing, abandoning old fantasies and dreams of playing on stage himself, but he didn’t need to know anything about it to know that they sucked. Really bad.

But the way the singer opened up his soul every night, every single week, drew Gerard to him. The deep vibrations of the bass resonated somewhere deep within Gerard’s chest every time he saw them play. He was awestruck by how focused he was, how dedicated every word he sang felt like when it escaped his lips and went through the microphone. Even when the room was empty, save for him and a few other patrons, he had the same kind of energy as if he was up against a crowd in a stadium.

Tonight wasn’t any different, save for Gerard battling with himself a little more than usual. The ideas hadn’t been there today, much less than what he was used to, and that canvas was beginning to mock him. But the music was starting to mix with that strange weight he carried, every time he listened to it he felt a little lighter. Something close to that comforting feeling of home he had been chasing for so long, in orange glowing street lights and twilight hours.

He just wished he knew what to say to the guy.

Every time the show ended, despite it becoming nearly ritual for the singer to come up to a bar and pull up a seat next to him, ordering the same drink as his (no matter how many times it changed), Gerard couldn’t muster up the courage to say hello. He couldn’t tell if it was anxiety poking needles of self-doubt into him, his depression dragging him down, or just the fact that even though they hadn’t shared a word, he felt closer to him than anybody else in a long time. Maybe he didn’t want to break the idealized personification he had made up of him in his mind, or maybe he was, to put it in layman’s terms, just an awkward guy.

At the very least, he didn’t spend as much time thinking about it as he normally would have. Gerard had yet to order his own drink that night, getting a bit lost in the lyrics, and the man beat him to it when the set was done and he came to the bar, as usual.

“What keeps you coming here?” He asked, ordering for the both of them for a change. Gerard noted he looked tired, maybe just as tired as he was.

“I like your band.”

“Bullshit, not even I like my band right now. I’m usually a lot better, but I’ve hit a shitty rut and can’t get out of it. What really brings you here?”

Gerard shrugged, taking the glass from the bartender when he brought them their drinks.

“Looking for a new muse, I guess,” he said.

“Aren’t we all? Elusive bitch. I’m Frank. I scream into microphones for a living. You?”

“Gerard. I’m an artist...at least, I think I am. Haven’t been much of one for a while now.”

“So, make yourself into one again. Do something.”

“It’s not that simple,” Gerard shook his head sideways, “You can’t just sit down and do whatever you want, there’s a whole process.”

“Fuck the process,” Frank drank from his glass, “Just make something. Anything.”

Gerard drank his own, the bitter taste warming his mouth and throat almost immediately. He hadn’t paid attention to what Frank had ordered, but it didn’t bother him. It was good. Not enough to get to him, not enough to spark a flame inside him, but enough to let go of his burdens for a little while and try to find out what it was Frank was all about. Did he know how Gerard felt when he sang? The connection? Probably not, Gerard was just a face to him.

“I can’t,” Gerard replied, frustrated, “I’ve tried. It just doesn’t come.”

“Give it time. It’ll come.”

“It’s been too long.”

Frank smiled warmly at him, looking at him with compassion. Gerard bit on his fingernails, the black nail polish chipped and nibbled at, and turned away from Frank. He felt strange, having just about met him and already speaking about his troubles, but it felt natural to do so. As if they had met before, maybe in another life, in another universe, and under different rules. Frank paid for their drinks and asked Gerard to follow him, going off to fetch his guitar. He slung the empty instrument case over his back, grabbing the guitar by it’s neck, and led the way outside the small venue.

Despite it not having rained in a while, the streets were still wet and bright, reflecting the neon signs and letters from the various businesses that were still open. The lighting was almost comforting to be around, the intrusive sunlight finally gone to rest and nothing overly invasive or exposing shining on him. He’d grown to appreciate it all, even when a particularly disturbed individual or two felt the need to cause a bit of chaos.

Frank caught him biting his nails again and pulled his finger out of his mouth. Gerard stared at the way he gently lowered his hand and held on, still leading him somewhere. He didn’t want to ask, for the same reason he was scared of knowing him more and shattering what he wanted him to be. What he needed him to be.

They stopped under a blinking streetlight, at a bus stop. Frank offered him a cigarette, clicking his lighter for his own then, and Gerard felt mesmerized by the way his face looked when he cupped the flame, the small glow making his eyes look warm. Catching his stare, Frank smiled at him again and grabbed his hand. He turned his fingers around, touching the parts where he had yet to clean the dried paint off.

“What is your muse?” Frank asked, letting his hand go. He leaned against the bus stop and took a drag.

Gerard shrugged, smoking himself now and letting the cloud of smoke run out thin, “Nothing. Everything. I’m particularly fond of cityscapes in a fog, lonely gas stations in the middle of the night, or cluttered rooms at dawn. Just to name a few things I’ve painted.”

Frank nodded and urged him to continue, holding the cigarette between his lips and positioning his guitar so he could test out a few chords. The noise that came out was smooth, a song different to what he usually sweats out on stage, and Gerard felt that mesmerizing feeling overcome him again. This time, it felt a little more powerful, loosing himself in the way Frank moved with dexterity over the strings. Wondering what he was doing, or what he had in mind for him, Gerard decided to just keep talking. Keep the words coming, his voice speaking, anything to let that heavy burden stay behind for just a few more minutes before it swallowed him up and he was nothing again.

“But right now... It’s lost to me,” he said, still watching him strum, “It’s been so long since I’ve done anything that it just pisses me off whenever I go home. I can’t do it.”

Frank, humming along with the tune, abruptly stopped. Turning the case around, he slipped his guitar inside and zipped it shut, adjusting it again so it laid against his back. He crushed the barely lit stub on the side of the bus stop, and tossed it into the nearest bin they had.

“Before you suddenly started to pop up in my shows,” Frank said, his breath coming out in short little puffs of fog, “I couldn’t find myself either. Day after day, I lost every single one of my words. It was like, all of a sudden, I was wearing someone else’s skin over my own and I was out of place. Didn’t make any damn sense to me, because I’ve always been the same thing, but still.

“Then you came along. Consistently, at that. You didn’t tell me to stop, you didn’t say I was incredible, you just sat there and listened to me. Every single time. This might sound weird, and I’m sorry if I’m crossing a line, but all of a sudden even when I couldn’t rely on myself, I could rely on you being there for me. Is that...too much?”

“No,” Gerard reassured, getting rid of his own cigarette stub, “It’s not. I’ve been looking for it myself. Something to hold on to when the wind gets too strong and tries to blow me over.”

“So you don’t feel the same way about me?”

“I do.”

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?”

“I was scared you wouldn’t be what I thought you were, I guess. I didn’t want anything to change, and I turned into a bit of a coward.”

“Have I disappointed you yet?” Frank turned his head as a bus rolled by and let a few passengers get off before taking off into the streets again. The clouds seemed to be rolling in again, pregnant with a storm, and the chill in the air picked up a little more. Gerard went to bite at his nails again, the confrontation making him uneasy, but abandoned the impulse as best he could.

“You haven’t disappointed me,” Gerard said, trying not to fixate on his nails, “but I don’t know you enough to tell you if you are what I need you to be.”

Frank looked back at him and scoffed, looking amused. “You know me enough to follow me home. Stay the night with me. Then tell me if I am in the morning.”

“If this is some elaborate ruse to get me to warm your bed, I have to say I’m a little impressed,” Gerard chuckled.

“It’s not,” he replied, “I just really don’t want to be alone tonight. I know you don’t want to either.”

“What if you aren’t what I need?” Gerard asked. A bus was coming up again, and Frank pulled him by the hand to stand next to the curb.

“Then tell me. And I’ll try.”

Coming up to its stop, the doors slid open and a few people filed out. Frank stood, his hands back in his pocket, and waited for a response. The thought had risen in his mind whenever Gerard had left for the night and come back home, back to the shadows that had taken residence in the corners of his home. He had toyed with it, wondering its outcome and getting lost in the daydreams on occasion, but it never went far enough. He never let it get too far, the ache in his chest tightening if he dared. Now the chance had presented itself, and he found every bad sensation that clung to him like chains were dissolving right before him. He knew, deep down, that it would come back. It wasn’t a fix, but a small temporary relieve.

Without another word, Gerard grabbed Frank’s hand and pulled him into the bus, heading to sit near the back. He didn’t feel the need to fill the emptiness with words of any kind, it didn’t do to waste the moment with small talk. Frank slipped his hand through the hair on the back of Gerard’s head and kissed him, slow and soft.

The bus drove through different stops, all blurring together in a mess of lights, signs and people, both of them letting time stop just for a little while so they could share in whatever it was that brought them together. It wasn’t questioned or mentioned at all, the way they desperately grabbed each other as they clumsily made their way up the stairs to Frank’s place. The way they’d needed this for longer than they’d admit, to anybody. All they needed was something that felt like home, even for just a little bit, in the hustle and bustle of days and nights that blended together until all of a sudden the year ended and it all started all over again.

The next day, the canvas still stood tall, daunting, and intimidating as ever in the far corner where Gerard had left it. Frank settled himself on his couch, pulled out the guitar, and started to play. With nothing more but the brushes left before him, for the first time in a few weeks he picked up the colors and started to paint.


End file.
